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1Jn_3:14. The contrast of love and hatred is at the same time one of life and death.
ἡμεῖς οἴδαμεν ] ἡμεῖς forms the antithesis of ὁ κόσμος . Though the world hate us and persecute us to death, as Cain killed his brother, we know, etc.
ὅτι μεταβεβήκαμεν ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωήν ] comp. Gospel of Joh_5:24; the perfect shows that the subject is a present and not merely a future state; moreover, the apostle does not say that the Christian has received the title to eternal life (Grotius: juri ad rem saepe datur nomen rei ipsius), but that the believer has already passed from death into life, and therefore no longer is in a state of death, but in life. By ζωή is to be understood not merely the knowledge of God (Weiss), but holy life in truth and righteousness; by θάνατος , not merely the want of the knowledge of God (Weiss), but unholy life in lying and sin. The natural man is fallen in lies and unrighteousness, and hence wretched ἐν θανάτῳ : by the salvation of Christ he enters from this state into the other, the essence of which is happiness in truth and righteousness.[224] That the Christian, as such, is in a state of ΖΩΉ , he knows from the fact that he loves the brethren; brotherly love is the sign of the ΖΩΉ ; therefore the apostle continues: ὍΤΙ ἈΓΑΠῶΜΕΝ ΤΟῪς ἈΔΕΛΦΟΎς .
ὍΤΙ refers, as most commentators rightly interpret, to ΟἼΔΑΜΕΝ and not to ΜΕΤΑΒΕΒΉΚΑΜΕΝ (Baumgarten-Crusius, Köstlin); the relation between ΖΩΉ and ἈΓΆΠΗ is, namely, not this, that the latter is the originating cause of the former (Lyra: opera ex caritate facta sunt meritoria), but both are one in their cause, and are only distinguished in this way, that ΖΩΉ is the state, ἀγάπη the action of the believer: out of the happy life, love grows, and love again produces happiness; therefore John says: ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν (sc. τὸν ἀδελφόν , see the critical notes) ΜΈΝΕΙ ἘΝ Τῷ ΘΑΝΆΤῼ , by which the identity of not loving and of abiding in death is directly brought out.[225]
It is not without a purpose that the apostle contents himself here, where he has only to do with the simple antithesis to the preceding, with the negative idea: ΜῊ ἈΓΑΠᾷΝ , with which the ἘΝ Τῷ ΘΑΝΆΤῼ ΜΈΝΕΙ also corresponds; it is only in the following verse that the negation reaches the form of a positive antithesis.
ΜΈΝΕΙ expresses here also the firm, sure being (so also Myrberg); it is therefore used neither merely in reference to the past, nor merely in reference to the future.
[224] By this expression: μεταβεβήκαμεν κ . τ . λ ., the apostle describes Christians as having been, previously to their believing, ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ , hence also not yet τέκνα τοῦ Θεοῦ ; contrary to the assertion of Hilgenfeld, that the author of the Epistle shared the Gnostic view of the original metaphysical difference in men.
[225] Besser: “Where hatred is, there is death; where love is, there is life; nay, love itself is life.” Weiss erroneously maintains that here, “instead of the strict converse in the form of a progressive parallelism, just that is mentioned which is the result of the non-transition from death to life, namely, the abiding in death,” for John did not need to say actually that he who has not passed from death to life is in death.